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I'm taking care not to overfeed. Today i just fed her a few tubifex worms which she consumed within seconds. I wont be using any medication now. Last time i dumped in methylene blue out of panic. And i repent that addition of food at the last moment. Prevention is really much better than cure.
The fish should have no chance of eating the eggs. Lets see how well it goes this time

If possible get some Acriflavine. I always use it with the Corydoras eggs.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com

Update: the second female is laying dozens of eggs right now the net is working very well and only a small percentage of eggs is getting eaten. Thanks again Jason for that wonderful idea.
I'll try posting some pics soon.
-Mughal

That's good news mughal113 & hope to see some pictures.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com

So the exhausted parents have been removed. The net is still there in the tank. Some eggs are still sticking to it, that's why I'm hesitant to remove it. I can see 50+ eggs on the bottom and im sure there are more. Hopefully, it wont be just eggs this time and we'll get to see some fry
There is no light fitted over this tank and taking pictures is not an easy job at all. I tried taking some in the morning but they were not good at all to be posted. Will try again when I get back from work.

-Mughal

Just leave the net there & remove it after the hatching. Prepair some Infusoria & Microworms, so you'll have something to feed the fry.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com

As promised, here are a couple of dark photographs. I mentioned there is no light in the tank.

1. Here is the tank, the net and the parents I made a frame out of some PVC pipe and wrapped the net around it.

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k96/mughal113/tb_net.jpg

2. An egg. Its 20 hours old now. Thats the only egg I could get photographed. I think the opaque "thing" developing inside the eggs is the embryo.

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k96/mughal113/tb_egg.jpg

Jason, do you have a link to a page describing the the procedure to start an Infusoria culture? So far I've always fed the fry with liquid fry food and dried egg yolk.
And I have left the net inside the tank.

Here is a link about Infusoria:-

http://www.aqualandpetsplus.com/Live%20Food,%20Infusoria.htm

Well done for the netting & very nice shot of the egg.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com

Thanks for the compliments. I hope there will some fry too this time.
One last question. It would not be possible for me to find someone here that has running cultures of microworms. How can I innoculate a new culture then? And I have a one gallon jar placed in a window that contains a lot of anacharis and some decaying plant matter that feeds these plants. I hope that jar can serve as a sourse of infusoria.

Yes, the jar has Infusoria & it will be fine.

As for Microworms, you need a starting culture & then you can continue culturing it yourself with some AllBran, but you need a starting culture from someone.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com

Mughal, I took your dark Tiger Barb breeding aquarium shot and ran some gamma correction on it. Here's the result (pic at bottom of post). Oh, and congratulations on the egg shot, which turned out REALLY well!

Looking forward to the successful patter of tiny fins!





Attached Image:


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

ooOOOOOOOOoooo That really is a lot of improvement. Great!
I'm not that good at digital image editing and often loose the details of the image while adjusting the colors/brightness/gamma. Thats why i no longer bother trying correct my images.

Anyway, i can still not see any fry in there. I'm wondering if the males have been fed/injected with harmones to make them sterile. Albino TBs are not very commonly available here and are a bit pricey as well. May be thats what has contributed to their rarity.
Im going to wait for 5 days before flushing the tank this time. This is the duration after which the fry (if any ) should be free swimming.

Make sure you check the tank well before flushing it. Remember that the fry will be very tiny & a bit difficult to see. Just make sure you have an empty tank before doing anything.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com

I must be doing something wrong...terribly wrong!
Is there any chance of bacteria/parasites eating up all the eggs?
I havent flushed the tank. The sponge filter is running and there is no sign of any fungus there. Im gonna wait for some days and see. But Im not happy at all

If you have any plants in there, then any fry that have hatched will be hiding amongst them for some time. Usually until they are properly free swimming and their swim bladders contain gas for buoyancy regulation. This takes time.

First you have to let the eggs spend about 72 hours hatching, then you have to wait another 72 hours or so for the yokl sac to be fully absorbed and the swim bladder to become full of gas.

Once that proces is complete, the fry will still, if they are there, be difficult to see - they'll be like tiny glass slivers.

One way in which you might be able to see them is as follows. Take a polarising filter off the lens of a camera if you have one, then shine a torch into the tank. Rotate the polarising filter as you peer through it. If little iridescent specks start appearing as you rotate the filter, then those could be your fry.

A 3mm fish fry that is translucent in colour will be very difficult to see, especially if your nursery aquarium is unlit.

If you used an antifungal medication, then any eggs that were fertilised should hatch.

Oh, by the way, a tip you might like to try from the 1970s that appeared in one of my TFH back numbers vis-a-vis egg fungus. The freshwater crustaceans known as Water Lice, belonging to the Genus Asellus (we hav Asellus borealis as a native part of the UK fauna for example) are reported to be feeders upon egg fungus without damaging the eggs. Experiments in this vein were apparently conducted in 1977. I can dig out the article if you wish, assuming it isn't in one of my 'lost' issues that disappeared recently.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Update: I have FRY
Yes, they are tiny. Even smaller than the opaline gourami's fry! I spotted three this morning and I hope there are more in there... I wanted to take a photograph of one of them but the camera batteries had drained out and I had to leave for the office.
Thanks God I didnt drain the tank!

Thanks again jasonpisani and Calilasseia!!!

-Mughal

Congratulations

http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com

Thanks
I added some water from the infusoria culture.
I have 7 convict fry, just a week old. if I add them to the same tank, would they consume the barb fry? I think they would, just confirming.

-Mughal

I wouldn't mix the fry. Just leave them on their own & make a small water change daily, with water of the same temperature. Kepp on Infusoria & then start feeding them Live Brineshrimp & Microworms (if you found a culture).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com

Hi,
Here are a few pics of the fry Look at their eyes

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k96/mughal113/tb_fry1.jpg
http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k96/mughal113/tb_fry2.jpg

And here are two together

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k96/mughal113/tb_fry3.jpg


-Mughal

And by the way Cali, that article about Asellus borealis you mentioned would be great to read. It might not be possible to implement the idea in a home aquarium but it would definitely be something very interesting. Please post it when you have some spare time! Thanks.

-Mughal

Well taken pictures, mughal113. Try to keep the substrate clean & when they are free swimming, you can add a small Apple Snail, so it will eat any leftover food.




http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com

Once the fry are free swimming and occupying the upper layers of water, it should be safe to drop in a couple of Corys. At the moment they still appear to be absorbing yolk sac, hence their spending time on the aquarium bottom. Once the swim bladder is full and the fry are in midwater, they'll be safe from Corys.

Oh, another tip - if you can get Hornwort, Ceratophyllum demersum as one of your plants and pop it in the fry aquarium, it will aid nitrate management (it's a documented nitrate hoover) and will also provide your fry with a sanctuary.

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Fry are free swimming now. I've started doing small water changes. I can get some small apple snails but would it be safe for the fry especially at night? The plants will rot away as the tank is not lit.

Hi,

Here is an update. The fry have grown to 8~10mm. Here is a fresh photo.

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k96/mughal113/tb_fry4_e.jpg

And here is the 1cm one. The tail has developed quite a bit.

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k96/mughal113/tb_fry5_e.jpg

and here is the the same photo under a mask showng the iridescence . See Calilasseia, I've started working with digital photo editing

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k96/mughal113/tb_fry5_er.jpg

I've also put in some of the anachris. If it starts to rot, i'll just swap it with some new stems. I have got a lot of this stuff.

-Mughal

Are you sure they are 1cm?. The seem very small in the pictures.........

http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com

From head to the tip of the tail, yes They are definitely 1cm now.

Hi,
Here is an update:
The fry are 12 days old now and they have been growing nicely. From the very first day, I have not counted more than five fry at a time. All those five are still there. I think thats a drawback of using that net method. May be due to the distance between the eggs fallen below the net and the male, the fertilization rate seems to be low. I had the net at 1 inch from the floor!
I have also started feeding them a mixture of powdered bloodworms+tubifex worms+pellets. I also added some anacharis from the same jar which I believe has an infusoria culture (thanks Jason!). A couple of fry always seem to hang in there among the stems and they seem to have grown quite better than the ones staying down. I assume those plants are holding some source of food for them.
I dont have my camera today. Will post some pics of the fry soon.
-Mughal